Singapore Garden Festival 2008

Yesterday, I got really tired from the office move. At the new place, nothing was set up - the contractors were still around fixing whatever they needed to do. I was stuck in the office and felt the need to get out and have some fun. So I headed for Suntec City for the Singapore Garden Festival 2008.

My nose was assailed by the smell of greenery when I walked into Suntect City. I paid S$5 for my ticket (S$1 discount for being an Ikea Friends member). I also "lent" my membership card to a lady to get her that S$1 discount. I guess the discount made it easier to stomach the entrance fee since the festival wasn't so great.

I got to the top at Level 6 where they told us to start our tour of the festival. I entered and went straight that award winning garden display called Shangri-La. It was interesting. It was an underwater scene, so it was a little surreal like I was underwater and looking up towards the sky. The various cacti were artfully arranged to look like coral under the sea. There were bubbles (like what we blow for fun) floating upwards languidly from some hidden source somewhere under the cacti.

On the top was glass (representing the surface of the sea) and there was water flowing over the glass. It was truly an underwater scene. The only thing missing was Nemo swimming around!!

After that display, I walked around the whole exibition and got some creative ideas for my future floral displays.

I then went down two levels to another part of the exibition where they were showing community gardens, ikebana displays (so artificial), orchids galore and where they had gardening talks. When I got there, the talk was in Chinese, so I gave it a miss.

I truly like the NParks display of edible plants. That was the glutton or cook in me coming out - drool, drool - and it quite inspired me to consider growing my own veggies and herbs in our tiny patch of a balcony where we hang laundry.

I walked around to the booths selling stuff and investigate what's available - also the shopaholic in me coming out. Nothing interesting in truth. There was a booth selling the Singapore Shawl which I thought looked interesting, but I figured that I could make it myself so I didn't buy one. Saved some money there!

My downfall was the butterfly display - I saw these really pretty artificial butterflies stuck to the wall and my creative side popped out for the decorations for my squatter's rights office. Maybe a couple of butterflies could cheer up the place.

V came to join me and used my ticket to get in. Yeah we saved some money there on the ticket - 2 for the price of 1!!

Office Moving

My other office moved yesterday - this is the office where I have squatter's rights for the work I do. It was a madness move because we have to vacate the office in McNair Road by 31 July and nothing (no power, no airconditioning, no lights) in the new office had been done. Work only started last week on Wednesday 23 July with the partitions going up and the contractors working overtime. I must give credit to my client the contractor Ah Ng for working so hard to get the place done up as much as possible.

We started packing over the week all the stuff that was hardly used - then there was another round of packing on Saturday.

Yesterday, the movers came around 11 and started the BIG MOVE. The guys came in like locusts and moved everything out. Then they started stacking the stuff into their huge lorry. The bulk of the stuff was moved to the new office by 4 o'clock.

All we have left in the old place at McNair are the telephone and internet in working order, a large table that I am sharing with HH, electricity with airconditioning (so important!!) and a whole lot of bits and pieces that we have to clear or dump.

The folks from M1 came today to remove the repeater box for making our mobile lines work in the office. Ah Ng also came to give us a quotation for the reinstatement of the beautiful wooden floors upstairs. Tomorrow our cleaning lady will come to clear out the place with a mop and on Thursday, we will hand over to the landlord.

Why are we moving? The rental went up double, so we decided that it wasn't economical to stay. So money talks!

I will miss this place for its' charm. We have an old colonial townhouse with 3 bedrooms and 2 balconies upstairs and lovely wooden flooring. We converted the back bedroom into a guest room and we had our overseas visitors stay overnight on a few occasions. On those occasions, I became the executive housekeeper - I would wash the bedsheets and make up the bed. All our visitors were charmed by the quaint surroundings.
Yes, it was fun for the two years that we were here - I am sure the corner coffee shop will miss us very much!

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Singaporean drivers

Has anyone ever noticed that Singaporeans are very inconsiderate drivers? They road hog, the cut into your lane, they sound the horn if you are a little slow off the mark, they show you the hand or the finger, or they use their headlights inconsiderately?

OK, I have to admit that I passed my driving test in Singapore - so who am I to complain about these drivers? I can tell you that I am no idiotic woman driver. I like driving and have impressed a lot of men with my driving skills especially parking. I can reverse park a vehicle without turning my head, using just the wing mirrors for guidance (brag, brag a little ;-p )

Dad was in town for a couple days and was driving his foreign registered princess mobile. Dad knows his way around Singapore streets very well, except for when the road works come along to confuse him.

These are my observations sitting as his passenger and navigator - Singaporean drivers just "dun give chance" to other road users. Dad was a little slow when the lights changed, and the drivers behind him started sounding the horn. Then when he gave signal that he was going to switch lanes to the right, they just came along faster without giving us a chance to filter right. The same for when we were doing the filter left thing!!

Then they would also cut into our lane as we filter left on the expressways. Otherwise, they will drive like slow Sunday drivers who have no idea that they are road hogging.

I think that Singaporean drivers have a problem - the kiasu syndrome - that clouds their judgement and they no longer have any patience for anything. It is totally the ME, ME, ME, thing.

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Easter

This is our third cat in the family - Easter. She came to live with us on Easter Sunday, so that's how she got her name. Easter came one week after Junior came to live with us. Easter was rescued by our friend Kelly on a wet rainy night. Kelly kept Easter for a couple of days then she was inspired to ask us if we wanted to adopt her.

OK - my original answer to Kelly was NO, we cannot cope with another pet. We already have FatBoy and Bandit and we just got Junior, so I don't think we can cope with another cat. HH had other ideas - he said YES to Kelly. I was totally amazed. Then he gave the rationale for taking Easter in - Junior was absolutely petrified of FatBoy and Bandit. He needed a friend to grow up with him, so since we cannot get another dog, we will have a kitten!! So that's how Easter came to live with us.

Junior really needed a friend - he wouldn't poo or pee on the newspaper if FatBoy or Bandit were sleeping around it. He was also scared of those two cats who could be quite intimidating in their own way. He took to Easter with great happiness. They quickly became good friends - eating and sleeping together. Junior would share his dinner with Easter. They could drink from the same bowl too. Something Junior WOULD NOT do with FatBoy or Bandit.

Junior would also keep Easter in line - she loves going out along the corridor for a walk. Whenever I called her, she would ignore me. So, I would get the great retriever to retrieve his mei-mei Easter. I would tell Junior - go fetch Easter and tell her to come home. Junior would then run down the corridor and grab Easter by the scruff of her neck and drag her home. She would be protesting the whole way home along the corridor. Mum always thought that Junior would injure Easter in this fetch exercise, but he never harmed her. He just brought her home.

Easter is our great wanderer cat with incredible wanderlust. She is always out - treating our home as her hotel. She comes home for meals and to use the toilet. Otherwise, she will be out in the neighbourhood claiming her territory.

In the evenings when we come home, she will be in the carpark to greet us - quite unusual for a cat, if I may say so myself.

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Interesting lessons

Yesterday we went back to the office to settle a couple of matters. It being Saturday, we were back late in the afternoon. Lo and behold, we had two colleagues there also working on some stuff. One was a new guy named SY who had just taken over a position that was handled by RA who had resigned and gone onto another company. I guess this was part of the handover process that I walked in on.

So during this handover, SY got to ask RA many questions - how does this link to that? where was the information stored etc. etc

RA gave all the information, but I think SY was hoping to take the easy route and not figure a lot for himself - maybe a case of SY wanted to be spoon-fed and get everything easy.

RA told him part of it and said that he would have to figure the rest of it. Then came the best part that got me laughing:

SY, girls I can introduce to you. Making the babies, you will have to figure!

So this is a lesson for the youngsters out there - you will have learnt something from school, you will also be taught some stuff, but in the end you will have to figure it for yourself too!!

Excellent advice from the old bird programmer to the young upstart programmer.

GO FIGURE!!

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Things that bother Junior

Junior is a real sweetie pie but there are many things that bother him and make his life miserable. Rain, thunder, lightning, wind, sudden loud noises and plastic bags are some of the things that bother him.

I will start of the elements that make him miserable. It will be the strong winds in December that cause the curtains in the bedroom to flap in the wind. Then there will be lightining in the distance and the loud clap of thunder that follows. The rain may come first though. In whichever order these appear, Junior will be most miserable.

At night, he will jump into bed with his papa and mama and cry. He will also jump in between us in his bid to be safe. Sometimes we are wicked - we will get really close together to stop him of getting in between and occupying a large portion of the bed. In this instance, he will insist on squeezing himself in between and will force himself in. In this picture, what's left of that space belongs to me - I have to share with them all!

If we turn away from him and ignore his attention seeking ways, he will paw us by tapping on our ears - help! help! please mama! I am scared of the rain and thunder and lightning. All his actions will be accompanied by whining and very mournful looks. Sometimes in his terror, he will rest his head on our ears and get really close as possible.

In desperation for sleep, we have laid hands on him and prayed that Jesus will make him a brave boy and cast away his fears.

The other bugbears are sudden loud noises and the flying plastic bags. We don't like sudden loud noises either, so we can understand. The flying plastic bags are those that confound us - I guess these look like UFOs, tossing around in the wind with no fixed path so Junior is extremely worried that they will land next to him and he will get jittery.

Please continue to pray for Junior to be a brave dog.

Junior

This is our Junior when he first came to live with us in April 2001 when we were in Toa Payoh in my aunt's third floor 3-roomed apartment. We found him in a pet shop and decided that he was too cute to live in there and rescued him to live with us and FatBoy and Bandit. In those days, I worked from home so Junior had my full attention.

Junior had this THING about stairs - he wasn't keen on them. In the mornings when he went out for his walk, we would turn right towards the stairs. When he got to the stairs, he would look down them and walk the other way towards the lift. So we take the lift downstairs for pee and poo. After the walk around the garden, we would try to walk up the stairs. We managed to trick him into walking up one flight, then he realised that he was tricked big time. He would just stop on the second floor, look up the stairs and refuse to budge another step. We thought walking along the corridor to the other staircase could trick him into walking up to the third floor. NO WAY! He would get to the bottom of the staircase, look up and head towards the lift.

No amount of cajoling or shoving or treats would get him to move up the stairs. He would head to the lift. So I would hit the UP button and get a lift ride up one level.

In the lift, I would look sheepishly at the other residents and declare - HE REFUSED TO WALK UP ONE FLIGHT OF STAIRS, SO WE HAVE TO TAKE THE LIFT.

The same thing would happen everytime he went for a walk, so we wised up and just took the lift!!

It was a good thing he looked cute and was cuddly - he was excused indulgently by the other residents who chuckled at his clever ways.

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Singapore footwear fashion

Much has been written about Singapore fashion - how bad it is and how sloppy the Singaporeans are. So I will add my 2cents worth of comments about the bad dressing - in particular the footwear fashion or lack of footwear sense. Have you noticed that Singapore women are always shod in slippers or open-toed slippers or shoes or they just don't bother to match their shoes to their clothes?? I have observed plenty of slippers or backless or strapless shoes or sandals on Singapore women's feet. Them not wearing proper footwear causes them to walk in a strange strutting manner, or walk like they are bow legged or wobble/totter around most precariously in their stilettoes. So this is the first part of the grouse.

The next bit is about how they do not bother to match their shoes to their clothes. Many times, we will see that the women dressed in the professional or smart work clothes. Then when the eye moves down to the feet, lo and behold - they have a horrible pair of "shoes" on - more like slippers - to the point they don't look "grounded" or just underdressed.

This is now my confession on shoes or footwear - I cannot wear slippers around in Singapore, especially on the streets. I have this phobia about the wet toilets that I have to visit and the thought of the dirty water all over the markets and hawker centres to make me ill. So my regular footwear everyday would be a pair of covered shoes.
Think of the dust and dirt and germs you get on your feet after tromping around town and you bring into your home - enough to make you feel a little ill?

Good friend - John

This is a post is for my good friend John - a friend for many years long before I met HH (hero husband).

John's greatest pleasure is EATING. He loves food. You name it, he will eat it. He is on a SEE FOOD DIET - geddit?? He will try anything at least once and if he loves it, he can eat it in vast quantities.

Over the years John and I have had fantastic gluttonous meals together. There was once we were in Chinatown at the New Bridge Centre hawker centre having raw fish noodles and yummy braised beef brisket. This was our brunch that Saturday.

We started with something hot - braised beef brisket. Then we started on the raw fish noodles with 2 extra plates of raw fish. After we finished that, we felt they were not sufficient, so we added another plate. Five minutes later, another plate was added to the pile. I think after we finished our brunch, we had 12 plates stacked on our table.

Our hand signals to the stall holder were simple - we raised our hand and held up one finger. We did this numerous times. Everytime we looked at the guy, he nodded and brought another plate of raw fish.

This is my makan kaki (eating leg friend) in our gluttony.

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Singlish II

This is another bug bear of mine with the Singaporeans speaking English or SINGLISH. They cannot differentiate between LIVE and STAY when they ask questions about the whereabouts of your residence.

I will hear the question: where do you STAY? I will invariably answer: We LIVE at (name of place such as Yishun or Katong or wherever).

STAY means: to remain in a place rather than leave as in:

They stayed all afternoon, chatting or I decided to stay home or Isabel stayed for a year in Paris to study. or Stay in bed and drink plenty of liquids or She stayed late to finish the report or Stay right there! I'll be back in a minute, or stay to dinner/stay for lunch etc

LIVE means: in a place/home [intransitive always + adverb/preposition] if you live in a place, you have your home there as in:
They lived in Holland for ten years or He lives just across the street from me or We live only a few miles from the coast or A rather odd family came to live next door to us or As soon as I saw the place, I knew I didn't want to live there or Does Paul still live here?

So could someone just STAY around long enough to tell the Singaporeans that they LIVE in Singapore or are they transients just passing through? Could this be the reason that Singaporeans are always thinking that the grass is greener on the other side and they think they should only STAY a while and make use of whatever they can?

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Sunday activities

On Sundays, our activities are fixed - not exactly cast in stone, but rather fixed. We will get up, get dressed and head to church for the 9:30 am service. After church service, we head off to the corner coffee shop across the whole series of apartment blocks to have brunch. Since I am on a low carbo "diet", I usually have 1/2 fried chicken from the western food stall - no fries, no coleslaw. Just chicken. If I am still hungry, I would have a big pow. My brunch usually has me downing my 2 cups of teh C kosong!

After that brunch, we will head home or do some grocery shopping. Once we get home, we rest and get a nap to "recover" from the stress of the whole week. By about 3 pm or closer to 4, we start moving our bodies to go DOG TRAINING.

This is the highlight of the week for our dogs Junior and Torrent - a chance to get to the large field at Seletar Farmway, run off leash for about 20 minutes, then chill out at the grounds.

For Hero, he trains the pre-novice obedience class for this session. Sometimes he has idiotic dogs with their equally idiotic handlers who make us wonder if they will ever pass out and move on to harass the next level.

My favourite job at the training ground is WEED PULLING!! I have armed myself with a stool, a bucket, a pair of pliers and a pair of secateurs. The stool for my bottom, the bucket for holding the weeds and the pliers and secateurs the tools of the trade. Pliers to pull out the horrible mimosa or "touch me not" weeds that have thorns. Secateurs to snip the weeds into small bits.

Weed pulling as earned me a reputation at the training ground - people come up to tease me and ask me what gold I am digging for. In reality, weed pulling saves me the agony of talking to people who come to the training ground and behave in an idiotic, dumb and stupid manner. What on earth do these people do to get me going? They tell me all sorts on nonsensical things, ask questions and walk away none the wiser.

After training, we go home to dinner with my sister. She would have cooked dinner. It is the one responsibility she has at home - COOK DINNER ON SUNDAY. She will ask: What do you want to eat. We answer: we don't care, we will eat what you put on the table - you figure dinner! We have to put up with her insecure questions of does this (chicken or fish or whatever) taste OK? enough salt? taste OK?

The answer she get is: We don't care - you cook we eat!

However, sometimes we are wicked - we tell her that her cooking is terrible - the fish is overcooked, the vegetables are dead or whatever just to fuel her insecurities.

After dinner, it is knock out to sleep after a tiring day.

Good night!

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Singlish!

Singlish! That mangled mixture of English spoken in Singapore, part English, part Malay, part Hokkien, part Mandarin - a real mixed salad or "rojak" that befuddles foreigners who come to Singapore. I have no idea why Singaporeans must speak in this horrible manner where it sounds like gibberish.

Don't get me wrong - I can take the "lah!", "meh" or "hor!" as in "Can lah!" or "yah meh?" or "hooooor!" for emphasis, but whole garbled Singlish conversations really get to me. I really apologise that I cannot repeat what I hear in written form because it is so mangled and I have no idea how to write in Singlish.

A few years back my friend John who teaches English to nurses from China used to get me to sit in the class and have conversations with them. The nurses could ask me anything in English and I would answer their queries in my standard English. When the nurses could not understand my replies in standard English, they would go "kwai tien, John, fan yi" or something like "Quick John - translation please!". I would say that we had fun because I could practice my horrendous Mandarin (actually non-exsistent language skills) on them. Whenever they said something that I didn't understand, I would repeat "kwai tien, John, fan yi" to their peals of laughter. Those were hilarious times that I think we enjoyed somehow. I think the nurses benefitted more than I did since I am linguistically illiterate in Mandarin.

These students learnt standard English in China, but when they came to Singapore, they were stumped by the poliferation of Singlist in every strata of the population they met. It is really sad that in Singapore, there are people who are not capable of saying complete sentences in either English or Mandarin. The sentences would go something like this:

Last night, hor, we went makan at East Coast Park. After eat, we go kai kai along the beach and paktor a little. If I were a foreign native English speaker, I would be stumped by this sentence. It's gibberish or I suppose Singlish that I profess not to write.

Many times, I have been ambushed by sales people who insist on coming after me in Singlish or Chinese. When I tell them that I do not understand either, they look stunned - a person with a Chinese face telling them in gramatically correct standard English that she does not understand.

I think Singaporeans will have a better standing in their dealings with foreigners if they tried to speak standard English instead of the garbled rubbish that comes out of their mouths.

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